Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and libraries
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 7:33 AM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: [Bit off-topic, but has anyone read that book?] I have got it, but haven't finished it yet. Andrew spoke at the recent GLAM-Wiki event last year, which has audio available [1]. There are lots of good talks at that event (including one from Cory Doctorow), if you are interested in the intersection of galleries, libraries, archives, museums and WIkipedia. I work at the US Library of Congress where we've been slowly materials and putting them online since the Web was just being born in the mid 1990s. Like most Libraries we use web metrics software to track what's getting used, but recently I've started thinking that it could be interesting to show how library, museum, archive material is used in Wikipedia, to demonstrate how important it is that GLAM institutions continue to put content online. So I started working on Linkypedia [2]. Linkypedia kind of turns Wikipedia inside out, and lets content publishers see what articles reference their content. So for example the British Museum can see what Wikipedia articles reference their site [3]. And folks who are interested in keeping current with how Wikipedia uses their content can subscribe to a feed that lists them as they are added [4]. I'd like to scale this project significantly by allowing any domain to be looked at, and include links from all language wikipedias [5]. But this will require a small (but not insignificant) investment in a server with a couple gigabytes of RAM. I was thinking of contacting the toolserver people to see if I could potentially work in that environment. Sorry to hijack your thread, but I would be interested in hearing if any feedback on the idea of Linkypedia, and if anyone had any experience with what sorts of projects are possible in the toolserver environment. Perhaps that question is best asked on their discussion list though... //Ed [1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GLAMWIKI_UK_Fri_26_14.00_Stevenson_-_Andrew_Dalby.ogg [2] http://linkypedia.info/ [3] http://linkypedia.info/websites/1/pages/ [4] http://linkypedia.info/websites/1/pages/feed/ [5] https://github.com/edsu/linkypedia/wiki/linkypedia-v2 ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12400647 Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia. Do you think they will let humans edit their Wikipedia? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and libraries
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Ed Summers e...@pobox.com wrote: Linkypedia kind of turns Wikipedia inside out, and lets content publishers see what articles reference their content. So for example the British Museum can see what Wikipedia articles reference their site [3]. And folks who are interested in keeping current with how Wikipedia uses their content can subscribe to a feed that lists them as they are added [4]. I'd like to scale this project significantly by allowing any domain to be looked at, and include links from all language wikipedias [5]. But this will require a small (but not insignificant) investment in a server with a couple gigabytes of RAM. I was thinking of contacting the toolserver people to see if I could potentially work in that environment. Perhaps I am missing something, but aren't there existing SEO tools for seeing 'where are my domains being linked from'? I occasionally go into Google's Webmaster Tools (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en) and see where gwern.net pages are being linked from. (I was surprised to learn that my [[dual n-back]] FAQ (http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ.html) had been linked on the German Wikipedia.) And surely Google is not the only purveyor of such tools. I also wonder how much such a server would cost, even if you *had* to roll your own service. It sounds like it'd be trivial to provide a browsable web front-end, so I assume the gigabytes you speak of are needed for analyzing the database dump. But dumps occur so rarely you don't need a 24/7 server crunching the numbers. For a server with 7.5 GB of RAM, Amazon charges only $0.34/hr (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/), so even a very long number-crunching session would only cost a few dollars. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
Just as we have no way of knowing which of our editors are AIs who have passed the Turing test, I doubt if they will be able to tell which of their editors are humans who can pass a reverse Turing test. Incidentally one of my friends who is in that line of work reckoned that there probably isn't yet an AI that could pass the Turing test sufficiently well to get through RFA. But I reckon there is an even chance that we will need a policy such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/AI_accounts before the end of Wikipedia's second decade. Regards Jonathan Cardy On 9 February 2011 14:45, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12400647 Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia. Do you think they will let humans edit their Wikipedia? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
Most humans see the world their own way and there's very little standardization going on. Fred http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12400647 Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia. Do you think they will let humans edit their Wikipedia? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:47 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/AI_accounts Asking AI candidates at RFA if their operator will switch them off if they pass is considered by some to be incivil or tactless. LOL! :-) Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore
On 04/02/2011, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). I've much more often seen people, or even worse, groups of people, tearing up rules and just doing something fairly random, often because they think it reads better or because they just don't like something or other(?) One of the weaknesses of Wikipedia is actually that of accuracy. It's not that it doesn't happen, in fact it very frequently is accurate, but accuracy only occurs because individuals put it into articles, whereas there are often groups of people quite happy to systematically remove accurate information. As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles?
Re Ian Woolard's query: As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? I'm not sure who if anyone thinks we are complete or anywhere near completion. But there are lots of boards and mechanisms that concern themselves with the accuracy of articles, most if not all the wikiprojects involve people who are concerned about the projects in their remit. The death anomalies project just focuses on death anomalies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Living_people_on_EN_wiki_who_are_dead_on_other_wikis We also have the typo team and the BLP noticeboard among many different ways in which Wikipedians can collaborate to improve the pedia. WereSpielChequers On 9 February 2011 18:48, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 04/02/2011, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). I've much more often seen people, or even worse, groups of people, tearing up rules and just doing something fairly random, often because they think it reads better or because they just don't like something or other(?) One of the weaknesses of Wikipedia is actually that of accuracy. It's not that it doesn't happen, in fact it very frequently is accurate, but accuracy only occurs because individuals put it into articles, whereas there are often groups of people quite happy to systematically remove accurate information. As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 04/02/2011, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). I think the comment by Nathan would be an accurate assessment of the history of the Verifiability and No Original Research policies, whose meaning has mutated so much that their initial, perfectly reasonable origins have been lost to myth and legend. - Carl ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
While no robot has passed the official Turing test (though many have passed highly simplified versions of it), the idea of a central AI system is an innovative one-- just think, Wikipository-- the information repository that any robot can contribute to-- Intelligent robots are programmed to be modular in a sense that they can receive new sets of instructions and learn to perform them. If robots had a centralized global information repository, just think of the possibilities of artificial intelligence! If such a repository could be established and successfully implemented, it would no doubt become the most powerful source of artificial intelligence in the world. And regarding robots letting humans edit their 'pedia...unless we program them to restrict our contributions, they can't. And even then, WSC is correct-- what's to stop us from looking like a bot? Bob On 2/9/2011 9:47 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote: Just as we have no way of knowing which of our editors are AIs who have passed the Turing test, I doubt if they will be able to tell which of their editors are humans who can pass a reverse Turing test. Incidentally one of my friends who is in that line of work reckoned that there probably isn't yet an AI that could pass the Turing test sufficiently well to get through RFA. But I reckon there is an even chance that we will need a policy such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/AI_accounts before the end of Wikipedia's second decade. Regards Jonathan Cardy On 9 February 2011 14:45, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12400647 Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia. Do you think they will let humans edit their Wikipedia? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles?
What I think is happening is that most of the articles (most of the major topics) have been created, and most people, many of them newcomers or laypeople, are not aware that anyone can come in and expand articles that have been started but not finished - coincidentally about 1/3 or so I estimate are still stubs. For most of these people, it's getting past this notion that people own articles in a purely social sense - that in a wiki, people are free to add, modify, or delete content; at the same time, people need to do this within standards set by the wiki community. (Note that I am not just talking about Wikipedia but most any wiki in general.) -MuZemike On 2/9/2011 1:30 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote: Re Ian Woolard's query: As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? I'm not sure who if anyone thinks we are complete or anywhere near completion. But there are lots of boards and mechanisms that concern themselves with the accuracy of articles, most if not all the wikiprojects involve people who are concerned about the projects in their remit. The death anomalies project just focuses on death anomalies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Living_people_on_EN_wiki_who_are_dead_on_other_wikis We also have the typo team and the BLP noticeboard among many different ways in which Wikipedians can collaborate to improve the pedia. WereSpielChequers On 9 February 2011 18:48, Ian Woollardian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 04/02/2011, Nathannawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). I've much more often seen people, or even worse, groups of people, tearing up rules and just doing something fairly random, often because they think it reads better or because they just don't like something or other(?) One of the weaknesses of Wikipedia is actually that of accuracy. It's not that it doesn't happen, in fact it very frequently is accurate, but accuracy only occurs because individuals put it into articles, whereas there are often groups of people quite happy to systematically remove accurate information. As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and libraries
On 8 February 2011 14:35, Ed Summers e...@pobox.com wrote: Linkypedia kind of turns Wikipedia inside out, and lets content publishers see what articles reference their content. So for example the British Museum can see what Wikipedia articles reference their site [3]. And folks who are interested in keeping current with how Wikipedia uses their content can subscribe to a feed that lists them as they are added [4]. I'd like to scale this project significantly by allowing any domain to be looked at, and include links from all language wikipedias [5]. But this will require a small (but not insignificant) investment in a server with a couple gigabytes of RAM. I was thinking of contacting the toolserver people to see if I could potentially work in that environment. Seems similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:LinkSearch -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore
It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). Perhaps not banned, but driven away from frustration. To select just one from a myriad of examples, take the alt text cult at en.wiki's featured article process. The basic idea of alt text is sensible: vision impaired people deserve a text substitute for images they cannot see. Surely Wikipedia's best articles would provide that. So alt text became mandatory at featured article candidates. All images needed alt text, standards developed for alt text, alt text needed to be rewritten several times to meet the exacting standards. Meanwhile, reviewers remained remarkably lax about the images themselves and resisted commonplace suggestions such as the idea that maps ought to be legible. The last time I checked several en:wiki featured articles I found multiple instances of misattributed public domain claims that ought to have been moved off Commons and reuploaded locally at en:wiki with nonfree use rationales. Correct license and legibility are minimum expectations. The overall standard for media content is so low that the article about Richard Nixon's Checkers speech reached featured status without any media component to see or hear that speech, which is public domain and readily available from several sources. Yet text developed a cult status out of proportion to its actual importance. The problem is one of site culture where pointing out these imbalances risks a vindictive response from well connected people. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote: While no robot has passed the official Turing test (though many have passed highly simplified versions of it), the idea of a central AI system is an innovative one-- just think, Wikipository-- the information repository that any robot can contribute to-- Would they edit war, I wonder? Intelligent robots are programmed to be modular in a sense that they can receive new sets of instructions and learn to perform them. If robots had a centralized global information repository, just think of the possibilities of artificial intelligence! If such a repository could be established and successfully implemented, it would no doubt become the most powerful source of artificial intelligence in the world. Maybe. I would want to get the opinion of an expert on AI on that. And regarding robots letting humans edit their 'pedia...unless we program them to restrict our contributions, they can't. And even then, WSC is correct-- what's to stop us from looking like a bot? A reverse Turing test, maybe? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
On 2/9/2011 5:22 PM, Carcharoth wrote: On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote: While no robot has passed the official Turing test (though many have passed highly simplified versions of it), the idea of a central AI system is an innovative one-- just think, Wikipository-- the information repository that any robot can contribute to-- Would they edit war, I wonder? Unless the interface is designed to prevent that, most likely. Bob ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 12:13 AM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote: On 2/9/2011 5:22 PM, Carcharoth wrote: On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote: While no robot has passed the official Turing test (though many have passed highly simplified versions of it), the idea of a central AI system is an innovative one-- just think, Wikipository-- the information repository that any robot can contribute to-- Would they edit war, I wonder? Unless the interface is designed to prevent that, most likely. And would they come up with something like 3RR? [This may be getting a little silly...] Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
On 2/9/2011 6:21 PM, Carcharoth wrote: On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 12:13 AM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote: On 2/9/2011 5:22 PM, Carcharoth wrote: On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.comwrote: While no robot has passed the official Turing test (though many have passed highly simplified versions of it), the idea of a central AI system is an innovative one-- just think, Wikipository-- the information repository that any robot can contribute to-- Would they edit war, I wonder? Unless the interface is designed to prevent that, most likely. And would they come up with something like 3RR? [This may be getting a little silly...] They could probably set up listeners to monitor for activity like that and enforce a 1RR-- where if two bots successively reverted one another, a counseling agent would slip in and request they stop. The counseling agent would bring in another agent designed to evaluate which edit was probably correct using complex AI, and the two bots which had been involved would be denied access if they attempted to perform the same action again. Bob ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia and robots
On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 12:43 AM, Bob the Wikipedian bobthewikiped...@gmail.com wrote: They could probably set up listeners to monitor for activity like that and enforce a 1RR-- where if two bots successively reverted one another, a counseling agent would slip in and request they stop. The counseling agent would bring in another agent designed to evaluate which edit was probably correct using complex AI, and the two bots which had been involved would be denied access if they attempted to perform the same action again. It all sounds very logical, unemotional, and efficient. Not Wikipedia, then! Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
